I keep on thinking that it'll be possible to find a truly rhizomatic hypertext narrative—by truly rhizomatic I mean, like, the purpose of every edge is just to point out an association between otherwise "free-standing" nodes. but everything I've looked at that even approximates this (closest that is freely available is http://unknownhypertext.com/) still uses links to elaborate on a topic or show causal/temporal connections

twine games in particular seem to be resistant to the rhizomatic mode—almost all twine games I can think of use hyperlinks primarily to move a protagonist through simulated space and/or through a series of branching plot choices. (if any of this makes sense to anyone and you can think of counterexamples, I'd love to see them). maybe it's just hard to think of "content" that affords/benefits from the kind of ecumenical, bidirectional links I'm imagining

@aparrish I feel like there's a very deep separation (like, down to being two almost totally overlapping communities of authorship) between hypertext-as-simulation (ie, games) and hypertext-as-association (ie, the literary hypertext people)

The two communities want almost totally opposite things from their hypertext.

One wants to be immersed in a fiction, the other wants ironic distance and analytical detachment.

@natecull oh yes there definitely is. having attended the electronic literature organization conference frequently in the past few years, where many of the old school literary hypertext people hold court, I can say the separation is very palpable

Thing about the wiki mode is that it really mostly lends itself to 'encyclopedias'. You can of course make any number of encyclopedias of fictional worlds, but I think that's not what you're getting at?

Is the hyper-linked artwork something that is expected to *change in response to the experiencer's attention*, or *remain unchanged* and simply allow itself to be viewed from multiple angles?

In other words, to maybe steal and greatly modify an idea from Marshall McLuhan: Is the interactivity 'hot' or 'cool'? Does the artwork remain aloof, or become entangled with the experiencer's choices?

@natecull yeah, not really. in a wiki the nodes are always "topics" and the edges are always "related topic." i wonder if there's a genre of creative hypertext waiting out there where those categories are different or at least more fluid. (_the unknown_ again is the closest thing i know to this, but _the unknown_ also sucks because it's a pseudo-autobiographical kerouac pastiche written by 30-something academic white guys)

@aparrish I admit to being seized a deep, deep sense of ennui upon even reading a few lines of the first page of The Unknown. I am very obviously not the target audience for that work.

I am intrigued by the idea of what 'edges' might be in a wiki other than 'related topic'. Because it's what I want right now: a 'semantic wiki' where edges indicate relationships of some specificity other than 'just related'.

@aparrish@natecull The only thing I can think of is the SCP Foundation (http://www.scp-wiki.net/). It's not very interlinked, and each individual entry is very standard-narrative, but it has that sort of non-linear, disconnected feeling to it after you hang around for a little while.

Follow friends and discover new ones. Publish anything you want: links, pictures, text, video. This server is run by the main developers of the Mastodon project. Everyone is welcome as long as you follow our code of conduct!